Empower Information Systems

Installing Small Buiness Server 2003 can be difficult at times. With the proliferation of RAID and data protection hardware, finding the right drivers and installing them can be diffiult as well. When InstallingSBS Server on a server that has RAID configuration enabled, often times you can run into the error: During the initial installation, you may receive the following error:

“Cannot run DCPromo because the SYSVOL partition is not formatted as NTFS” or “permissions could not be properly configured for the Fax Operators security group” and the installation may indicate errors.

It can be difficult to troubleshoot this error especially when you have hand loaded the drivers for your RAID controller during setup. The most simple way to work through this is to make your disk dynamic.

Create Dynamic Disk

• Right Click My Computer
• Select Manage
• Select Disk Management
• Right Click on the disk box
• Select Dynamic

Below is an exerpt from Microsoft that goes over the entire issue.

SUMMARY
During the initial installation, you may receive “Cannot run DCPromo because the SYSVOL partition is not formatted as NTFS” or “permissions could not be properly configured for the Fax Operators security group” and the installation may indicate errors.

SYMPTOMS
During the initial installation of Windows Small Business Server 2003, you may receive messages such as “Cannot run DCPromo because the SYSVOL partition is not formatted as NTFS” even though the hard drive has been formatted as an NTFS drive.  You may also receive the message indicating that Server Tools did not install properly “an error occurred while the server was being configured. Rerun Setup”.  Additional error messages include an error on Server configuration stating “permissions could not be properly configured for the Fax Operators security group”.

CAUSE
While Windows Small Business Server 2003 can be successfully installed on Basic Hard drives, the error may occur due to RAID, or SATA controllers.  You may wish to review the documentation provided by your Server’s Motherboard vendor as to recommended hard drive configurations and look for updated drivers from the manufacturers web site.

RESOLUTION
If using INTEL raid or hardware, visit this web site to download drivers to solve this issue:  http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=2101&OSFullName=Windows*+2000&lang=eng&strOSs=19&submit=Go%21
 
If you are not using Intel devices, you may consider converting the hard drives to dynamic which may resolve the issue.  On the server, open up the Disk Management Console, then on Disk management under Storage and right mouse click on the hard drive to convert it to dynamic from basic.